Tuesday, 16 April 2013

And my guess is that if you are part of the demographic that can understand the following then you've read the old Realm of Chaos books and they have become part of your subconscious.

I was recently made aware that a chap named Tony Hough was selling some of his old artwork.

Rant on: Now some of you may not know Tony Hough by name, but if you grew up with Games Workshop back when they were the best games developers out there, you will definitely have seen his artwork. For me he is among the top three most important of the talented people how developed the Warhammer universe, and Tony Hough did some of the most descriptive works on the Space Orks, Genestealers and, his best IMO, on capturing the essence of the chaos, the warp and its utter weirdness. This is perhaps difficult to explain to modern gamers, for whom Chaos is all about large axes and guns and who will gladly field Tzeentch and Nurgle troops in the same army.

For me, inspired by the Realm of Chaos books (my two mint copies, safely hidden in the basement, are still my most precious game books), Chaos was more than this - Chaos was blood yes, but it was also purple fish falling from the skies, champions getting acute hearing or the face of a sea otter, and other random things. Chaos was precisely utter randomness. And always (or mostly) with a bit of British humour thrown into the mix).

Rant off

Anyways, and sorry for the digress, Tony Hough drew some of the most important stuff that showed some of this randomness, and his best piece was the Chaos Spawn that featured in the Realm of Chaos books, White Dwarfs and countless other places, precisely because it is such a brilliant drawing.

And I now own it :-). Yes, I went ahead and bought a (scary) piece of my childhood, even convinced the wife, and it is now mine. All mine!

This drawing is just unbelievable - the details are amazing. I had a couple of my friends, who illustrate books for a living, look at it (non-gamers) and they were blown away by the amount of detail.
Below are a couple of closer shots, but the entire piece is simply amazing, and I do not regret the purchase for one second. This piece is, in my opinion, perhaps the most central image from the part of my childhood 'under the influence' of the Realm of Chaos books and similar stuff.

The black Ninja-Skeleton-Champion in front of the spawn is some of what makes this unique. there is no need for the figure (it could actually be argued to reduce the impact of the Spawn) but it adds narrative and mystique - is he fighting the Spawn or is he its guide?

Apart from all that Tony Hough turned out to be a fine chap and the purchase went without any problems whatsoever. He even wrote me this letter:

Oh dear, this became a lenghtier post than anticipated, but I am a pretty happy Dane at the moment and I really wanted to share my happiness with all of you.

5 comments:

Thanks Kasper! I'm very happy that this artwork has gone somewhere where it will cherished and appreciated.Lots more of my old GW stuff can be seen at:http://smg.photobucket.com/user/tonyhippy/library/Art/Workshop and many are still for sale. I can be contacted via my website athttp://www.tonyhough.co.uk

Hi Tony,Glad to see you here and once again thanks for the opportunity to buy this drawing. If you have any information on it or the time when you did it, please do share :-).For the record I would like to state that the entire transaction went amazingly smooth and the Spawn arrived at my address without any damages whatsoever.All the best,Kasper

Hey Kasper! Have you seen this? As part of the ongoing 30th anniversary of my 40K work I have made painted versions of most of the critters from this image which you can see over on Facebook....https://www.facebook.com/TonyHoughArt/photos/ms.c.eJw9ysENACEQAsCOLgurIP03diZGv5MBU~;QyLCnwhw0i54bm7AvlUZFqrDd0Bh~;4AC6IgwnSPxPYFHA~-.bps.a.169678583060275.42108.169096993118434/1290622624299193/?type=3&theater